Want to create re - usableable letters or characters from the standard Arial ( std 12.7mm) font where these letters or characters will be used as the basis ( of straight line or rotated text in future projects ) for extrusion and then subtraction from other solid 3D objects. Im hoping to eliminate as many nodes/facets as possible in the extrude result for each letter and character.

Is Arial the best font to use?

What is the best method for creating the profile of each letter or character?Just for clarity, how can I create smooth extruded letters or characters without excess facets?

fwiw: Ive tried the polyline tool ( sometimes Ive got it right, more by luck than anything else ) and it works ok, but Im wondering if I should use other tools ( like the arc, bezier, elipse etc ) as well or is my approach just plain wrong trying to draw the profiles?

Explode and convert flexible to curve, extrude or cone, maybe some simple font is "best", but what's the point if you can't choose any that pleases you. If you're coning letters with islands and/or different width legs/strokes, best to split and do them separately, invert the draft of island cones and subtract. The best results will depend on the font, the size of the text and the tolerance you're prepared to tolerate at the time of conversion. You could run around chasing your tail forever trying to create libraries with figures that will mostly never be used. Diminishing return IMO.

Thanks Alvin, gee wiz Im a goose. I thought there was something more fundamental in the howto design and create the text and I just plain forgot that I had the answers on my pc's 1TB usb hard disk. Info overload!

If I recall correctly, John R. already has a bunch of Text traced over into Polylines and such.

You know how generous he is-- he'll probably share what he's got with you. Heck, he might have already done so for someone else, and they're already uploaded to the Forum. [Edit]: Yeah, he did share them already; I have them in my Symbols sub-Folder which is named "John R". The Symbols Library he shared is named "Arial 3D font".

Alvin I did a search on Arial 3D font but could not find the forum topic?

What did I do wrong.

You didn't do anything wrong Darryl. I assume John shared it on a thread that had a different Subject line, and he perhaps put it in a .zip folder.Let's see if I can find it, while we're waiting on John to reply here.

Unzip and place the two SLW files in your "…Documents\TurboCAD 2017 Professional x64\Symbols\My Symbols" directory.Go to "My Symbols" in the Library Palette.If "My Symbols" doesn't show these two folders ("Arial 3D Font" & "Bauhaus Md BT") in the palette window, right-click and choose "Reload Library".These two libraries should show up after reloading.

When the Symbol is inserted into the drawing, it comes in as a Group; I usually leave the symbol(s) as is until I need to Scale up/down as one selection. The Arial file was made long ago where everything was formatted to a Region. Once the region is exploded ‘one time’, you should be left with Lines, Arcs, Ellipses & Elliptical Arcs.The Bauhaus file was done a couple of years back and has just Lines-n-Arcs, etc. inside the Group. I rarely use polylines, except where it may be all straight line segments.Since this is for Platinum, I use the "Use Compound Profile" option when extruding. When I activate the Simple Extrude tool, I'll enter a Height and Lock in the value (Ctrl+L).I'll hold the "Shift" key and start selecting the items to be extruded. When finished selecting, I'll Tab into the Height field and "Enter". I found if I selected first (where I had a large amount of items to select, then attempted to insert a Height value, it could be "minutes" between each number/period. With the number already inserted, hardly any waiting to start the extrusion process.

I'd trace an existing font, using Lines, Polylines, and Splines. I wouldn't worry about reproducing the font precisely. Arial seems like a fairly easy font to work with.

Henry H

Why trace the letters? What I do with a string of text is explode them 3 times. This will break it down from text to a group of graphics, then to individual objects, and finally separate the pen from the brush. Then I select and delete the brush which leaves me with an outline of the text. This outline can then be extruded, scaled, or whatever is needed.

I'd trace an existing font, using Lines, Polylines, and Splines. I wouldn't worry about reproducing the font precisely. Arial seems like a fairly easy font to work with.

Henry H

Why trace the letters? What I do with a string of text is explode them 3 times. This will break it down from text to a group of graphics, then to individual objects, and finally separate the pen from the brush. Then I select and delete the brush which leaves me with an outline of the text. This outline can then be extruded, scaled, or whatever is needed.

My guess is that's what John R did for his file.

Obviously Not Henry, but my reasons for tracing the font (with splines) is, to avoid faceting, clean edges for blending, and provide single directional scaling.

I'd trace an existing font, using Lines, Polylines, and Splines. I wouldn't worry about reproducing the font precisely. Arial seems like a fairly easy font to work with.

Henry H

Why trace the letters? What I do with a string of text is explode them 3 times. This will break it down from text to a group of graphics, then to individual objects, and finally separate the pen from the brush. Then I select and delete the brush which leaves me with an outline of the text. This outline can then be extruded, scaled, or whatever is needed.

My guess is that's what John R did for his file.

Traced letters can be made a lot simpler than standard font characters. They produce smoother extrusions and are much more amenable to various Boolean operations.

I'd trace an existing font, using Lines, Polylines, and Splines. I wouldn't worry about reproducing the font precisely. Arial seems like a fairly easy font to work with.

Henry H

Why trace the letters? What I do with a string of text is explode them 3 times. This will break it down from text to a group of graphics, then to individual objects, and finally separate the pen from the brush. Then I select and delete the brush which leaves me with an outline of the text. This outline can then be extruded, scaled, or whatever is needed.

My guess is that's what John R did for his file.

Traced letters can be made a lot simpler than standard font characters. They produce smoother extrusions and are much more amenable to various Boolean operations.

Henry H

I agree. Using the "Fillet Edges" tool on my custom Bauhaus text was a lot easier to do and immensely better looking without all sorts of facets in the mix.

Want to create re - usableable letters or characters from the standard Arial ( std 12.7mm) font where these letters or characters will be used as the basis ( of straight line or rotated text in future projects ) for extrusion and then subtraction from other solid 3D objects. Im hoping to eliminate as many nodes/facets as possible in the extrude result for each letter and character.

Is Arial the best font to use?

What is the best method for creating the profile of each letter or character?Just for clarity, how can I create smooth extruded letters or characters without excess facets?

fwiw: Ive tried the polyline tool ( sometimes Ive got it right, more by luck than anything else ) and it works ok, but Im wondering if I should use other tools ( like the arc, bezier, elipse etc ) as well or is my approach just plain wrong trying to draw the profiles?

Darryl,The extruded curve will be smooth when you "see" and "create"a 'Triangulated mesh" in the "curve area". Experiment with the"Tolerance values" in the convert to curve options. After doing it 100 times, you'll see how it works. ACIS 'degenerative faceting" is off.So you explode the text down to lines > Auto join polyline > convert to curve > extrudeor you might even discover a different way to get the "triangulated mesh"I think forum member "Darrel Durose" discovered that ACIS preview.